Alan Simpson

Alan Simpson Lashes Republicans For Anti-Tax Rigidity

Sahil Kapur | May 27, 2012, 10:45AM

Former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson

In remarkably colorful terms, former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) on Sunday lashed out at members of his party for their unyielding opposition to new tax revenues, whom he described as stymieing a debt reduction agreement.

"I guess I'm known as a RINO now, which means a Republican in name only, because, I guess, of social views, perhaps, or common sense would be another one, which seems to escape members of our party," said Simpson, a co-chair of President Obama's fiscal commission, on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS."

"For heaven's sake, you have Grover Norquist wandering the earth in his white robes saying that if you raise taxes one penny, he'll defeat you," he added. "He can't murder you. He can't burn your house. The only thing he can do to you, as an elected official, is defeat you for reelection. And if that means more to you than your country when we need patriots to come out in a situation when we're in extremity, you shouldn't even be in Congress."

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Violence Against Women Act

Who Really Screwed Up VAWA?

Brian Beutler | May 21, 2012, 2:17PM

Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY)

A minor oversight has landed the Senate Dems' bipartisan bill to extend Violence Against Women Act protections to same sex couples, immigrants, and tribal communities in legislative limbo.

It's not the first time a Senate-passed bill has been vaporized by the House for violating the Constitution's requirement that revenue-raising legislation originate in the lower chamber. Sometimes when that happens it's the result of a truly boneheaded error. But the current stalemate is the consequence of an unusual reading of the Origination Clause, and it's less clear that the Senate Dems really biffed it than that House Republicans are twisting the intent, if not the letter, of the Constitution to undermine the Democrats' leverage on this issue.

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Deficit

Debtpocalypse 2.0 Cometh: GOP Unites Behind Boehner's Debt Ceiling Demand

Sahil Kapur | May 16, 2012, 4:52AM

Senate Republicans quickly united behind House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) on Tuesday after he telegraphed his intention to use the debt limit as leverage to avoid a scheduled tax increase. Democrats balked at his demand that raising the debt ceiling -- which is set to max out this December -- be paired dollar-for-dollar with spending "cuts and reforms." The widening rift foreshadows another self-inflicted battle, the likes of which nearly collapsed the U.S. economy last fall.

"A request of the President to ask us to raise the debt ceiling ought to generate a significant response to deal with the problem of deficit and debt," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told a handful of reporters Tuesday afternoon in the Capitol.

In a Tuesday speech, Boehner said, "I will again insist on my simple principle of cuts and reforms greater than the debt limit increase" -- something his conference did last summer. Further hinting at chaos, he scoffed at the idea of raising taxes, even as Democrats insist they won't agree to another major debt-reduction deal that excludes new revenues.

McConnell wasn't the only Republican senator who backed up Boehner's stance.

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Gay Rights

Bush Pollster: GOP Must Evolve On Gay Rights

Sahil Kapur | May 13, 2012, 10:50AM

Carsten Reisinger/ Shutterstock

Republicans must evolve on gay rights or risk political extinction, a top GOP pollster warns leading establishment figures in a revealing new memo.

Jan van Lohuizen, who polled for President George W. Bush in 2004, finds that support for gay rights -- including same sex marriage -- is rising at an accelerated pace among members of all political affiliations. He calls on Republicans to acknowledge the shift in the way they talk about the issue.

The memo, reported by various news outlets, recommends that Republicans express their support for "equality under the law as a fundamental principle" because "freedom means freedom for everyone."

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Budget

Dems Sharpen Opposition As GOP Advances Cuts To Poverty Programs

Sahil Kapur | May 8, 2012, 6:05AM

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

House Republicans advanced a measure Monday that shifts automatic defense spending cuts the parties agreed to last August as part of a bipartisan debt-limit deal to domestic programs aimed at mitigating poverty and working-class struggles.

In clearing the legislation, the Budget Committee put it on a glide path to passing the full House -- but that's when it falls into limbo. Senate Democratic leadership had a concise message for their GOP colleagues: Dream on.

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John Boehner

House GOP To Shift Defense Cuts To Poverty Programs

Sahil Kapur | May 7, 2012, 5:44AM

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) speaks during a news conference on jobs on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on December 2, 2011.

As Congress returns from recess this week, House Republicans are set to advance legislation to replace automatic defense spending cuts they agreed to last year with cuts to programs for the poor and working class. The controversial measure is expected to pass the House and die in the Senate, making it largely a political exercise that allows the two parties to contrast the values at the heart of the 2012 election: Should the burden for addressing the country's long-running fiscal challenges fall to struggling people, or to the wealthiest people in the country?

The proposal -- which is an outgrowth of the budget the House GOP overwhelmingly voted for late March -- would cut some $261 billion from health care programs, food stamps, unemployment benefits and child tax credits, among others. It constitutes a violation of the GOP's end of the debt-limit deal, which included painful sacrifices for both parties if the Congress failed to reach a bipartisan deficit-reduction agreement.

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House Republicans

GOP Sets Up A Showdown On Violence Against Women Act

Sahil Kapur | April 26, 2012, 5:49AM

Sensing that Democrats have them cornered on an issue central to a key voting bloc, Republicans are choosing to fight fire with fire.

The House GOP unveiled a dueling version of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization on Wednesday, setting up a confrontation with Senate Democrats who are poised to pass a measure that would extend the law's protections to Native Americans, gays and undocumented immigrants.

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Deficit

How Republicans Threw In The Towel On Deficit Reduction

Sahil Kapur | April 18, 2012, 5:01AM

For anyone who paid even passing attention to U.S. politics in 2011, the themes were loud and persistent: Republicans had stormed back into Washington to put an end to excessive government spending and runaway deficits, and would take no prisoners if Democrats stood in their way. The GOP's bravado manifested in a series of partisan clashes over must-pass legislation, and climaxed in near economic calamity when Republicans refused to raise the federal debt limit.

Fast-forward to 2012 -- the GOP's leverage is gone, and the legislative landscape on Capitol Hill has fallowed. Republicans are still running on deficit reduction, but as the election nears, their governing agenda reveals something that close observers recognized all along: Deficit reduction was never the point. Whether acceding to political reality, or proactively moving messaging bills through the House, the GOP has quietly let on that they're fine with deficits -- as long as they come in the right flavors.

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House Republicans

GOPers Struggle To Say Anything Good About Romney

Sahil Kapur | April 17, 2012, 5:02PM

Rep. Joe Walsh (R)

They'll have to make do. But conservative House Republicans are having a hard time finding anything praiseworthy to say about their party's presumptive presidential nominee.

Fourteen GOP conservatives sat together Tuesday on a Capitol Hill panel to field questions from a few dozen reporters and other attendees about the political issues of the day. When asked, predictably, to provide their thoughts about Mitt Romney, they turned decidedly lukewarm.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) summed up the conservative mood with a joke that won laughter from the audience, but might have hit too close to home for many in the GOP.

"Whether you're liberal, whether you're very conservative," he said, "you ought to be excited [about Romney] because he's been on your side at one time or another."

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Barney Frank

Barney Frank Unloads On The 'Great Scam' Of Paul Ryan

Sahil Kapur | April 12, 2012, 6:08AM

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) unleashed a stinging attack on House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan in an interview with TPM, describing him as an ideologically driven extremist who doesn't deserve his reputation within the political establishment as a genuine fiscal hawk.

Labeling the House-passed GOP budget a "great scam," Frank cited its military spending hikes from current law levels as evidence that Ryan's primary goal isn't deficit reduction. He also cited Ryan's refusal to specify which tax loopholes he'll close as evidence of trickery.

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Contraception

Republicans Try To Erase The Contraception Wars

Sahil Kapur | April 10, 2012, 5:56AM

After a series of public embarrassments, and faced with polling data that suggests the GOP agenda is driving women toward the Democratic Party, Republicans may be tacitly acknowledging that kowtowing to their conservative base in an election year has some ugly ramifications.

But that doesn't mean they're chastened. They're just hoping everyone forgets.

Congressional Republicans abandoned their push to roll back the Obama administration's contraception guarantee for female employees weeks ago. But now they're hoping that they can wipe the crux of what Democrats have termed the GOP "war on women" off the books entirely.

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Barack Obama

Obama: Ryan Budget Is 'Thinly Veiled Social Darwinism'

Sahil Kapur | April 3, 2012, 6:00AM

President Barack Obama speaks on the economy in Shaker Heights, OH on January 4, 2012.

Today the presidential gloves really come off.

In a Tuesday speech hosted by the Associated Press in Washington, D.C., President Obama will deliver a broadside to the House-passed Republican budget, which calls for upending Medicare and making deep cuts to domestic social programs. Obama will describe it as a dark vision for America and draw a clear contrast with his campaign themes of reducing inequality and asking the wealthy to help pay down the nation's debt.

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Paul Ryan

Cue The Ads: GOP Votes To Privatize Medicare In Election Year

Sahil Kapur | March 29, 2012, 4:44PM

Brave or politically suicidal?

For the second year in a row, Republicans voted Thursday to effectively dismantle Medicare -- this time, just over seven months before a presidential election. And Democrats are salivating at the political opportunity, eager to hang the vote around the neck of the party's presidential nominee and its candidates in tough congressional races.

"A year ago, nobody was talking about Democrats having a shot at the House. Now we're talking about it," a Democratic leadership aide told TPM after the vote, a party-line 228-191 that didn't win a single Dem.

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House Republicans

It's On: House GOP Preps For Vote On Radical Medicare Overhaul

Sahil Kapur | March 29, 2012, 5:52AM

Lost in the frenzy surrounding the Supreme Court health care arguments this week is an important development on Capitol Hill: House Republicans are poised to vote Thursday to drastically transform Medicare and spark another potential government shutdown battle.

The new budget plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) faces a floor vote Thursday -- it's a tweaked version of last year's blueprint that was relentlessly attacked by Democrats for "ending Medicare as we know it" in order to pay for large tax cuts for high-income earners. This year's blueprint also replaces Medicare with a subsidized insurance exchange, but keeps traditional Medicare alive as a public option among private plans that seniors can buy into.

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Paul Ryan

Ryan Promises To Close Tax Loopholes, But Won't Say Which

Sahil Kapur | March 25, 2012, 3:15PM

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

Appearing on two Sunday talk shows, the GOP's top budget guru Rep. Paul Ryan promised to close enough loopholes to pay for the large tax cuts in his budget blueprint unveiled last week -- but he repeatedly refused to specify any.

"We're proposing to keep revenues where they are, but to clear up all the special interest loopholes, which are uniquely enjoyed by higher income earners, in exchange for lower rates for everyone," Ryan said on CBS' Face The Nation. "We're saying get rid of the tax shelters, the interest group loopholes and lower everybody's tax rates."

The plan does not point to any such tax loopholes, nor is it expected to become law. But the House Budget Chairman's suggested it isn't his job to specify which ones. His message boils down to this: Trust us, we'll get to it.

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Medicare

GOP Slams Dems For Medicare Cuts Republicans Support

Sahil Kapur | March 25, 2012, 9:45AM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Houser Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)

The latest "Mediscare" battle is rife with irony: Republicans are attacking a Medicare policy enacted by Democrats, even though they voted overwhelmingly to continue the policy last year and are supporting it again this year.

In a new TV ad, the House GOP's electoral arm NRCC targets Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) for backing President Obama health care reform law, declaring that it will "decimate Medicare" and "shred the social safety net and leave seniors vulnerable at risk." The NRCC is also launching robocalls in 13 Democratic-held districts slamming the members over the Medicare cuts in the reform law.

The Affordable Care Act reduces Medicare spending by some $500 billion over 10 years, mostly with reimbursement cuts to private insurers and health providers -- the reductions do not touch benefits. The aim was to reduce over-payments and strengthen the life of the safety-net program.

As it turns out, nearly every Republican in the House and Senate voted last year to sustain those cuts in the Paul Ryan budget. And they're set to do so again in the near future as his updated Path To Prosperity blueprint comes up for a vote. That's the context of these ads -- Republicans know Democrats are about to hit them hard for again pushing a plan that partially privatizes Medicare and ends the coverage guarantee, so they're making a pre-emptive strike.

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House Republicans

GOP's Gambit To Alienate Dems On Medicare Savings Board

Sahil Kapur | March 22, 2012, 5:22AM

Republicans have lost some, if not all, of the bipartisan cover they once had for their effort to repeal a key piece of President Obama's health care law. Could they have done so on purpose?

One health policy insider thinks that's possible -- and sees a political upside to putting all Democrats on the wrong side of powerful interest groups.

"It's an election year," the industry lobbyist and former GOP aide told TPM in an email. "One doesn't need legislative victories ... just tough votes for the other team!"

At issue is the House's Thursday vote to repeal a powerful Medicare cost-cutting panel created by the Affordable Care Act. Many Democrats also dislike the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), and were set to join the GOP repeal effort. But that was before the GOP proposed paying for the cost of repealing it with a medical malpractice reform bill.

That will cost Republicans the support of dozens of Democrats who were otherwise on board to eliminate IPAB, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters. Repeal is also nonstarter in the Senate and faces a veto threat from the White House.

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Defense Spending

GOP Sparks New Battle Over Agreed-Upon Defense Cuts

Sahil Kapur | March 20, 2012, 3:38PM

House Republicans aren't just reigniting battles over domestic spending and Medicare in their new budget resolution. They're also instigating a war over military funding by seeking to replace automatic defense cuts both parties agreed to in the bipartisan debt limit deal to with major cuts to programs that benefit low- and middle-income Americans, such as food stamps and health care.

Democrats on the Hill and at the White House consider this a violation of the agreement they struck with Republicans last summer. The debt-limit legislation included a mechanism to force both parties to strike a balanced deal to reduce federal budget deficits: deep, automatic, across-the-board cuts to both domestic and national security programs. When the Super Committee failed in November, thanks largely to the GOP's refusal to back significant new tax revenues, it armed that bomb -- those cuts are now scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2013.

Instead of reconsidering their anti-tax absolutism, Republicans want to go back on their end of the deal.

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Medicare

House GOP Losing Dem Support For Quashing Medicare Cost-Saving Panel

Sahil Kapur | March 13, 2012, 5:38AM

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

Republicans have had no luck convincing Democrats to adopt their controversial plan to convert Medicare into a subsidized private insurance system. But they have had some success convincing Democrats to abandon President Obama and his plan for making Medicare spending sustainable. At least until now.

With help from some Democrats, House committees last week cleared legislation that would repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), the Medicare cost-saving board created by Obama's health care law, and the GOP-led chamber is poised to pass it next week. But their new plan to pay for the bill with a medical malpractice reform measure is already costing them Democratic votes -- and thus weakening their claim that Obama's vision for Medicare faces bipartisan opposition.

It's the latest jab in the congressional shadowboxing over Medicare's future.

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Budget

Dems Irate As GOP Set To Break Debt Limit Deal

Sahil Kapur | March 8, 2012, 1:18PM

Signs mounted Thursday that House Republican leaders, under pressure from their conservative members, will submit a budget that calls for cutting federal programs beneath the levels they agreed to in the bipartisan August debt limit law. Democrats warned that violating the agreement could spark a government shutdown fight later this year.

Echoing Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (MD), the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, told TPM that the House GOP must not go down that road.

"Look, an agreement is agreement, and they should stick to the agreement," Van Hollen said in a brief interview. "And not otherwise risk ultimately messing up the entire process, with a worst case scenario of a government shutdown. They should recognize what the risks are in violating an agreement."

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House Republicans

Top Dem Warns House GOP Not To Renege On Budget Deal

Sahil Kapur | March 7, 2012, 11:34AM

Amid rumblings that House Republicans may break their end of a major budget agreement they struck with Democrats last fall, and possibly touch off another government shutdown battle later this year, a top Senate Democrat issued a stern warning to the GOP: Don't go there.

"We had a deal last August on the budget numbers, and we expect them to live with that deal," said Sen. Patty Murray (WA) -- a member of the Democratic leadership, high-ranking member of the Budget Committee and erstwhile co-chair of the Super Committee -- in an interview with TPM. "I have been astonished how many times they play with fire. Last August they almost shut the government down, a year ago they almost shut the government down, by trying to go to a place where most Americans don't believe we should be going."

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Medicare

White House Doubts Congress Can Pass Deficit Bill Before The Election

Brian Beutler | March 6, 2012, 6:00AM

A senior administration official says the White House could support balanced deficit reduction legislation if Congress passes it before the end of the year -- but sees no evidence that Republicans have moved off their now higher tax revenue position, and thus doubt policymakers will be able to reach an agreement that President Obama can sign.

Here's the background.

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IPAB

Liberals Push Back Against GOP's Latest Salvo In Battle Over Medicare

Sahil Kapur | March 6, 2012, 6:00AM

President Barack Obama speaks on the economy in Shaker Heights, OH on January 4, 2012.

House Republicans are set to advance legislation to repeal a key plank of President Obama's health care law -- the cost-cutting Independent Payment Advisory Board -- and have enlisted several Democrats for a cause that's central to the conservative goal of phasing out traditional Medicare.

On Tuesday, the powerful House Energy & Commerce Committee is set to pass repeal of IPAB. The Ways & Means health subcommittee will also hold a hearing on it, bringing the measure closer to a floor vote, and advancing an ongoing fight about whether the government or private insurers should parcel finite health care resources.

While progressive health care reformers have effectively attacked the GOP's vision of a subsidized private health insurance system for seniors, they've been slow to close ranks around the health care law's competing vision of a leaner, more efficient Medicare. But there are signs this is changing.

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White House

How The White House Will Fight The GOP On Gas Prices

Sahil Kapur | March 5, 2012, 11:10AM

President Obama talks about gas prices and energy policies at a packed crowd at University of Miami

Republicans have seized on rising gas prices as a political weapon against President Obama. The White House, sensing peril in the attacks as the election gets closer, has mounted a plan to fight back. And rather than simply playing defense, officials believe they can win the messaging war, tough as that may seem, by defending Obama's record and exploiting weaknesses in the GOP energy platform.

"If drilling were the answer, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because under the president production is up," a White House official told TPM. "Our oil imports are down, and even Republicans have conceded we're in a domestic energy boom."

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Budget

House GOP Caught In A New Budget Predicament

Sahil Kapur | March 5, 2012, 6:26AM

For most observers, the biggest question about the House Republicans' forthcoming budget is how they'll handle the issue of Medicare. Will they readopt the same phase-out and privatize policy that got them into political trouble last year? Or will they, at least to some extent, scale back their vision?

But the bigger question has nothing to do with Medicare. The bigger question is whether House Republicans can pass a budget at all.

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Barack Obama

Has Obama Cornered Republicans On Contraception?

Sahil Kapur | February 13, 2012, 5:47AM

President Barack Obama and Senior Adviser David Axelrod

Republicans are doubling down in their assault on President Obama's birth control requirement, insisting that his accommodation of religious nonprofits does not address religious concerns. But by attempting to keep the heat on Obama, the GOP might be diving head-first into a culture war over contraception that social conservatives lost long ago in the minds of the public.

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said the House will push to repeal the rule entirely, while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Republicans will force a vote on legislation permitting any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plan by claiming a moral or religious objection. "This issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down," McConnell said Sunday on CBS' Face The Nation.

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Doc fix

GOP Warming On Dem Idea To Fund Huge Medicare Hole

Sahil Kapur | January 25, 2012, 3:23PM

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) And House GOP Doctors Caucus

House Republicans are coming around to the Democrats' plan for permanently ending the Medicare "doc fix" problem -- a $300 billion and growing albatross around the nation's neck that virtually everybody believes needs to be fixed. The option is now on the table, key Republicans tell TPM, just one month after some of those same lawmakers dismissed it as a senseless Washington gimmick.

Last fall Democrats began pushing the idea to pay for a full repeal of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula with war savings from troop drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Republicans didn't much care for it, but Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) hopped on board during the Super Committee negotiations, and has since been working behind the scenes to win GOP support.

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Tort reform

Tenth Amendment Zealots Block GOP's Medical Malpractice Reform

Sahil Kapur | January 20, 2012, 5:25AM

John Boehner

Whatever happened to medical malpractice reform? The cause has long been a high priority for Republicans, yet legislation on the issue hasn't even made it to the floor of a GOP-dominated House in over a year. What gives?

It's not for a lack of effort. The answer is that states' rights advocates within the House GOP caucus have split from top Republicans on the lynchpin issue of whether the federal government should limit the amount that malpractice victims can sue doctors in a particular case, forcing party elders to shelve the bill.

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House Republicans

'Our Members Are United': House GOP Brushes Off Tax Cut Defeat

Sahil Kapur | January 18, 2012, 11:55AM

John Boehner

House Republicans began 2012 by shaking off their defeat in last month's payroll tax cut standoff, conceding that the timing of their rebellion was less than ideal but insisting they're united for job creation and against President Obama in the new year.

"We've got a lot of disparate voices in our conference. The President wanted the payroll tax cut extended for a year, and so do we. We didn't think the Senate would leave, but it was pretty clear the Senate wasn't coming back," House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters Wednesday. "We were picking the right fight. But I would argue, we probably picked this at the wrong time."

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Eric Holder

Holder: GOP Cuts To COPS Program 'Place This Nation At Risk'

Ryan J. Reilly | November 8, 2011, 12:26PM

House Republican's plan to kill the Justice Department's Community Orienting Policing Services (COPS) program is "unacceptable" and would "place this nation at risk," Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

"Though we are enjoying historically low crime rates, we have 30,000 vacant law enforcement positions in this county, we have lost 12,000 officers over the course of the last year, and we put at risk the possibility that these historically low rates will not remain there forever," Holder said in response to a question from Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

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Barack Obama

Three's A Trend: Polls Show Voters Believe GOP Intentionally Stalling Economic Recovery

Brian Beutler | November 7, 2011, 1:28PM

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and President Barack Obama

President Obama and the Democrats have succeeded at convincing voters that Republicans are trying to delay economic recovery, according to a series of recent polls.

The new data suggests that about half the country, including a majority of self-identified independents, believe that congressional Republicans are using their political power to thwart Obama's efforts to reduce unemployment, presenting Democrats an opportunity to make this argument more explicitly as the 2012 campaign moves forward -- to undercut Republicans' claims that Obama and the Dems bear full responsibility for the economy, and to make their pattern of obstruction a real liability for them.

Suffolk University polled registered voters in Florida and found that nearly half of voters, including large minorities of conservatives and Republicans, believed "Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jump-start the economy to insure that Barack Obama is not re-elected?"

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Barack Obama

White House: Our Jobs Message Is Catching Fire

Susan Crabtree | October 28, 2011, 1:55PM

The White House is pushing ahead with its strategy of taking executive action to circumvent Congressional GOP opposition on job creation, on Friday unveiling a new presidential memorandum aimed at helping private businesses in hard economic times.

As President Obama struggles to build support for many components of his jobs bill in Congress, he continued to roll-out unilateral steps as part of his new "We Can't Wait" theme. Obama on Friday signed two business-friendly memorandums: one that would shorten the time it takes for federal research to translate into commercial products in the marketplace, and another creating a website, known as BusinessUSA, to make it easier for companies to learn about federal export opportunities and other government services.

"Today, I am directing my administration to take two important steps to help American businesses create new products, compete in a global economy, and create jobs here at home," Obama said in statement.

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John Kline

GOP Opposes Obama's Decision To Lower Student Loan Payments by 5%

Susan Crabtree | October 26, 2011, 4:48PM

Rep. John Kline (R-MN), who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, isn't happy with President Obama's executive action aimed at helping students pay back college loans.

House Republicans, he said, believe the presidential push to scale back students' monthly payments will only increase overall student debt and do nothing to curb unemployment.

"Sadly, the President has once again chosen to put politics before policy, touting a plan that will do nothing to help the nation's unemployed workers," Kline said in a statement Wednesday.

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House Republicans

House GOPers Were For Withholding Biz Tax Before They Were Against It

Susan Crabtree | October 26, 2011, 6:10AM

House Speaker John Boehner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the foreground.

House Republicans are crowing about leading efforts to repeal an impending 3 percent withholding tax on government contractors as yet another way they're rolling back the regulatory burden on businesses to help spur economic growth and job creation.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on Tuesday touted the withholding repeal, which the House plans to take up Thursday, and pressed President Obama to jump on the bandwagon.

"We're bringing up 3% withholding bill to help gov'ts & their contractors at all levels work in a more efficient way so prices don't go up," Cantor tweeted. "Hope the President will join us in supporting this because this is a provision in his bill & we have used a pay-for that he's embraced."

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Reid Ribble

Ribble's Office: 'Downplaying' Our Boss' Role In The Job Fair He Left Early 'Is Completely Uncalled For'

Evan McMorris-Santoro | October 24, 2011, 6:06PM

Staff for Rep. Reid Ribble (WI) -- the freshman Republican last seen on the pages of TPM explaining how he can be a "distraction" to employers trying to connect with the unemployed -- are pushing back hard on the notion that their boss cares more about the optics of a jobs fair than actually helping people find jobs.

Ribble held a jobs fair on Saturday, double-booking it with a $1000/host fundraiser 45 minutes away. But his staff say the fact that he left early doesn't mean Ribble cares more about raising bucks for his own campaign than helping his down-on-their luck constituents, as Democrats suggest.

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Reid Ribble

House GOP Jobs Caucus Founder Leaves Jobs Fair Early For Fundraiser (VIDEO)

Evan McMorris-Santoro | October 24, 2011, 12:32PM

The leader of the House Republican Job Creators Caucus, Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI), told reporters over the weekend that the best place for him to help with job creation is at a $1,000/host skeet-shooting fundraiser 45 minutes away from his own jobs fair.

Ribble said his attendance at the jobs fair his office set up and advertised was "a bit of a distraction" to people trying to find work.

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John Boehner

White House To Boehner On Jobs Plan: Did We Hit A Nerve?

Susan Crabtree | October 14, 2011, 1:47PM

The White House is holding fast to its claim that Republicans are running a do-nothing Congress, and, unlike President Obama, have yet to put forth a jobs bill -- or at least a real one.

Speaker John Boehner's (R-OH) press office Thursday evening pointedly released a summary of a private phone call he and Obama had earlier that day, in which Boehner took serious issue with Obama's claims during that morning's press conference that he has yet to see a GOP plan for job creation. (Obama had called Boehner to congratulate him on the passage of trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama).

Boehner reminded Obama that House Republicans put forth a "Plan for America's Job Creators" in May, and noted that he and other members of the GOP leadership team have spoken with the President and his staff about the plan and referenced it on numerous occasions, in letters and elsewhere.

The GOP plan consists of repealing government regulations on businesses, reducing taxes on individuals to 25 percent, allowing businesses to reinvest their overseas profits in the U.S. without having to pay a tax penalty, passing the three trade agreements, maximizing U.S. energy production and paying down the debt by slashing government spending.

But the White House argues that most of those policies -- minus the trade agreements (which he strongly supported) -- won't do anything to create jobs immediately, and so Obama and his team don't consider the proposal a real Jobs plan and they haven't been shy about saying so.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Friday was asked whether Obama was miffed by Boehner's decision to release the contents of his private conversation with the President. Carney's response: we must have hit a nerve.

"What I think it points out [is] that Republicans are coming under pressure from their constituents to do something on jobs and the economy, because again, one of the reasons they're coming under pressure, we're not just saying this is essential, their constituents are saying it," Carney said.

"The Republicans' so-called plan for jobs creators, while it might have some good ideas in it, free trade agreements, passage of patent reform and some other issues, those same outside analysts are saying will have no significant impact on the economy or jobs in the near term," he continued.

In Boehner's account of the phone call, he told Obama that Republicans have given his jobs plan serious consideration and even released a detailed memo outlining specific areas where they believe common ground can be found.

Boehner also pointed out that the House has already acted on several items in the White House jobs package, including a veterans hiring bill, trade agreements, and a 3 percent withholding bill, which the Ways & Means Committee approved Thursday and will be voted on the House floor this month.

"They also discussed transportation and infrastructure, and the Speaker expressed his desire to do something on the issue, but to do it in a fiscally-responsible way," Boehner's release noted.

Correction: original report misquoted Carney as saying NAFTA reform, instead of patent reform.

Abortion

Dems Slam GOP For Pushing Abortion Bill Instead Of Job Creation

Susan Crabtree | October 13, 2011, 12:32PM

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

Democrats are condemning a House GOP attempt to prevent President Obama's health care law from paying for abortions as an assault on women and a waste of precious legislative time when Americans are demanding action on the economy and job creation.

"First of all, it's not a jobs bill. What are we doing but wasting time?" Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters Thursday. "Every woman in America should be concerned about this assault on women's health."

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Tea Party

White House: Tea Party Is Wagging The GOP Dog

Susan Crabtree | October 12, 2011, 4:57PM

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Wednesday trained his fire on the Tea Party, blaming "one element" of the Republican party for Standard and Poor's mid-August downgrade of U.S. credit worthiness.

In response to a a question about why support for President Obama is slipping among Latino voters, Carney readily acknowledged that approval ratings for both Obama and Congress have fallen sharply this year as Americans have grown increasingly disgusted by the brinksmanship between the two parties, which was on vivid display during the mid-summer debt crisis.

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Barack Obama

White House: Unanimous Dem Support For Jobs Bill Is Not The Right Test

Susan Crabtree | October 11, 2011, 1:28AM

President Barack Obama

The White House is rejecting the notion -- even among senior Democrats -- that the President's jobs bill needs to get unanimous Democratic support when it hits the Senate floor tonight or face criticism that Obama is having a tough time convincing members of his own party about its viability.

"The test is not unanimous support among Democrats," a senior White House official told reporters Tuesday morning, noting that rarely does the entire Democratic caucus vote in lockstep on any bill.

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